


Warlock Magic

by AllOfTheFanfic



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Downworlder Week, Gen, M/M, Warlocks, a little of catarina, not much, warlock day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 08:53:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6322954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllOfTheFanfic/pseuds/AllOfTheFanfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec trying to figure out warlocks, they seem to be weird creatures. Also a warlock making an interesting discovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warlock Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Downworlder Week Day 1 - Warlock day
> 
> So today I realized that what I have prepared for today works better for another day and this fic works better for today… Which wasn’t finished :D  
> So this is barely edited and not beta’d, sorry for any random mistakes… Or if it’s just plain weird.  
> I Would have loved to include more warlocks but… this would have been way longer. 
> 
> Max Lightwood-Bane is in it though! Sorry, no Raphael though.

  


With heavy steps Alec climbed the stairs to his home, not entirely knowing what to expect. Sure, Magnus warned him that a bunch of warlock were coming over for a meeting, but he didn’t specify how many and if they would be gone when he’s back from the Institute. He could have stayed there longer, but Alec missed his boyfriend and son too much. Not knowing what to expect Alec braced himself for the worst as he opened the door to his apartment. Stepping in he looked around just in case he shouldn’t be disturbing something, but continued farther in after a second, looking for his family and ignoring the strangers giving him weird looks.

“What’s a shadowhunter doing here?” Called an unfamiliar voice and Alec turned to it, raising his eyebrows. He was sure everyone knew of his relationship with Magnus. They had a child for Heaven’s sake! So apparently warlocks either didn’t listen to gossip (because really, Alec knew there was gossip about them, Izzy made sure to tell them all the juicy details that made both Magnus and Alec laugh) or this one was just ignorant.

And this guy was obviously a warlock, if his warlock mark (big black horns on top of his head and there was something weird about his skin) wouldn’t give it away then the magic wrapping around his claw-like fingers would. Alec was still contemplating if he should grace the guy with an answer when a child’s voice called out happily.

“Dad’s home!” And before he could brace himself a small body ran into his legs causing Alec to grin. Bending down Alec picked up his son and kissed the top of his head.

“Hi, Max, have you been good?” The little boy grinned at his dad and hugged close.

“Don’t listen to anything he says, he’s been causing mischief with my guests.” Alec turned to watch his boyfriend approach and leaned in for a soft kiss as Max giggled and hid in his dad’s neck.

The shadowhunter was enjoying their small moment until a bitter voice disrupted it.

“Magnus you can’t be seriously playing house with a shadowhunter?” The older warlock just sighed and rolled his eyes barely glancing at the man before focusing on Max again.

“You have been picking at everything this whole day. I will not let you start anything with my family. Leave.” He looked at the warlock on the last word, making sure he understood that Magnus wasn’t joking then turned and led Alec and their son to the other room, leaving the warlock alone.

“He’s young. Younger than you, actually. And just realizing what it means to be immortal. So I’ve tried to be patient with him, we’ve all been there. But he is so freakishly annoying!” Magnus kept his voice down so only Alec could hear, the shadowhunter chuckled at the last part and took his boyfriend’s hand, rubbing soothing circles on his palm, holding Max with his other hand.

They came closer to Catarina, who smiled at Alec with her usual friendly smile that he returned. They have been on good terms and he liked talking to her. And he sure as hell trusted her to babysit Max more than some of their other options.

“There’s the little devil.” She booped Max’s nose with a smile and he hid in Alec’s neck once again, giggling to himself.

“Okay, what did he do?” Alec couldn’t help his curiosity as he looked to the warlocks around him. There were more listening to the conversation, but the closest standing to him were Magnus and Cat so he focused on them.

“Someone showed him how to teleport things. And he’s been making stuff disappear and appear in the weirdest places all afternoon. Scared a few of my guests with randomly appearing toys in the most inconvenient times.” Magnus gave Max a pointed look, but there was no harshness in that, mostly because Magnus himself was grinning and Catarina was pursing her lips tight, trying not to laugh. The other guests were grinning, too, seemingly amused by the tiny warlock’s pranks. The boy in question giggled and didn’t seem to feel guilty at all.

Alec was worried that Max would be too shy to meet other warlocks before and offered to take him to the institute, but Magnus and him decided against that and instead agreed that Alec would come back to pick him up if Max was feeling uncomfortable. But now it seemed that their son was thoroughly enjoying the company of new people and the unfamiliar warlocks seemed curious about him, but friendly.

Magnus introduced some of the warlocks to him, they chatted for a while, Max seemed to get along with everyone. Magnus had once said that warlocks were lonesome creatures, they didn’t group like vampires and werewolves did, and Alec seemed to understand as he watched a group of them interact.

It would be a difficult thing to explain if anyone asked him, but the way warlocks acted in a group was entirely different than how werewolves or vampires. Alec hadn’t been around groups of Seelies enough to know how they acted in a group for him to compare, but this wasn’t anything close to what he had seen. While werewolves and vampires seemed to follow a distinct leader, warlocks were their own people, with no obvious leader. There was a pattern, it seemed, but it flowed so quickly Alec couldn’t grasp it at first.

The shadowhunter settled in their kitchen, watching the group of warlocks through the open space. They were talking about new spells and discussing politics and Alec watched, trying to grasp their pattern.

Everyone had a turn to talk and were listened to carefully and then their thoughts discussed. If an argument broke out it would be broken and it would always be one of five particular warlocks that Alec watched more closely who would stop it. Magnus was one of them, Cat seemed okay at shutting the arguments off and the others he didn’t know.

After a while of watching that Alec was getting closer to grasping how warlocks behaved in a group. The older warlocks seemed to be in charge, the younger ones turning to them with questions, asking for advice and in turn the older ones offered their knowledge and taught what they knew. He still couldn’t get some of the things and how they treated each other, but for now Alec was fine with just watching his boyfriend and son interact with their own kind.

Max was as curious as ever, not afraid to ask questions that would have been considered rude from anyone older than five. Right now he was interacting with a guy who didn’t seem too interested in what the other warlocks were saying. Max was showing off a bit, showing the white sparks fly from his fingertips and Alec kept a closer eye on them just in case.

“What color is your magic?” Max smiled at his companion who seemed happy to interact with the child. The young man seemed a little surprised at the sudden question but smiled kindly after a second.

“I don’t have magic.” Max tilted his head to the side but before he could ask more questions Alec joined them distracting the boy.

“Dad, look!” Max grinned and in a flash of white sparks a wooden sword appeared in his hand making Alec grin at his son.

“That’s great, Max, you’re getting the hang of it?” He picked up his son who just giggled and poked him with the sword. Turning to look at the man he smiled.

“I hope he wasn’t rude?”

“Not at all, I like kids.” He grinned back and turned to the group of warlocks who seemed to be ready to leave. Alec took the chance to observe him. He wasn’t tall, but very lean, almost sickly and seemed to slouch like he was tired. His dark skin had a whisper of a shimmer to it that wasn’t makeup (and Alec knew, he learned the difference while living with Magnus) which seemed weird, didn’t he say he didn’t have magic? The man was watching someone intently with a soft look on his face and Alec turned to look, curious. There was a short girl talking to Magnus, it looked almost funny with how tall he was. She was definitely a warlock. Her skin was covered in iridescent scales that seemed to shine in rainbow colors every time she moved, her hair short and an unnatural shade of purple. The pair was walking closer to them while the other warlocks seemed to be leaving.

“I just wanted to ask if this is something that shouldn’t have been done?” The girl seemed uncertain, looking at Magnus with curiosity in her eyes while the older warlock listened to her intently. Then he looked up, first at Alec and Max, then his eyes scanned the man standing next to them.

“Alec, this is Anna.” He nodded at the girl next to him who smiled and waved and Alec had to smile back. “And I see you’ve met Darren. Now, what exactly happened?” He turned back to the warlock girl at that who suddenly seemed nervous.

“Darren has seemed to… stopped aging?” She half asked like she wasn’t sure. Magnus blinked at her, not entirely understanding so she continued uncertainly. “He’s human. Well kind of I suppose? But he hasn’t aged for at least twenty years.” Anna admitted almost shyly. Magnus startled at that and looked over Darren again.

“Well… I’d say that’s not possible… But I guess the proof is standing right in front of me?” Magnus tried to joke but it came out dry. He seemed to contemplate something and sat on the sofa, gesturing for Anna to sit next to him, Darren joining them. Alec followed after letting Max down, he was curious now, never having heard of anything like that.

“Magnus, you mean you’ve never heard about anything like that?” He asked his boyfriend who just shook his head and turned to his guest, giving her his full attention.

“Okay. Spill. What happened.” She seemed to have both dreaded and waited for this question and took a slow calming breath.

“At first I was just curious to why we don’t age. I assumed it had to do with our magic, it healing and changing our bodies. So I wanted to know if it would work the same on someone else.” Magnus looked like he was about to scold her, experimenting on mundanes didn’t go well with most of the Shadowworld, only the crazy ones dared to do it but she held up her hands in defense, asking to let her finish. “I tried it on plants at first. And so many died before I had it figured out! Then on small pets, like fish, which I want to say went better. After killing off the fifth fish I was about to give up and I did for a short while.

Somewhere along that I had met Darren and you know how falling in love goes.” She smiled a soft smile at her partner and it was filled with kindness and love before it clouded over as Anna kept talking. “He had cancer and I knew it was futile. I knew I already didn’t have much time with a mundane, and one with a terminal disease? I couldn’t take it. I was selfish enough to ask to try and heal him with my magic. Which didn’t seem to work at first, but he insisted he felt a little better after every time so I kept pouring my magic into him, trying to heal him. But it never worked for long, the disease would always come back.” Closing her eyes she took a shaky breath as Darren held her hand gently.

“I insisted on her to keep doing it because honestly, I really did feel better after every time. I started to notice that the longer we kept this up, the better I would feel and the longer it would take for the cancer to come back. It would always be a day or two, but it was something, right?” He looked at Magnus and then at Alec and they understood. A day or two more was always good. Anna seemed to come back at his words.

“So I offered to try a different approach. I thought that what if I didn’t just heal the damaged places, but gave him the energy in my body for it to fight for itself? It would be similar to what I did with the plants and the fish. Only it never worked too good. But we were running out of time, I couldn’t keep healing him and keep experimenting, I’d get too exhausted. So we took a chance, it was stupid and I’d call anyone else who did it an idiot, but I am so glad we did.” She sighed and her shoulders slumped like she was tired but her voice as she continued was steady.

“I poured my magic into his body. It was so hard, completely exhausting and at first it even looked like it didn’t work at all. But we kept up with it. And eventually Darren started feeling better, his body seemed to accept the magic and to use it to fight his illness by itself. At first we were so happy that it worked that we didn’t notice he hadn’t aged for longer than a mundane should.” She trailed off after that, not sure what to say and all of them kept quiet. Magnus seemed to contemplate what he had heard and Alec wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Finally Magnus rubbed his forehead and reclined on the sofa, watching the pair in front of him with curious eyes.

“First of all - yes, what you did was extremely stupid, it could have killed you both.” He had the same look on his face that he used when scolding Max - strict but not uncaring, just enough for his message to go through. “And you? Are you completely healed now?” He turned to Darren at that, wanting to learn more.

“It seems so. Or rather my body doesn’t let the cancer come back?” Magnus seemed to think about that answer trying to put it all into place.

“So what, she did it a few times and your body stored the energy? How does this work?” The older warlock turned to Anna and Alec smiled at that, he was all curious eyes now, interested in learning something new, the thought of scolding them all forgotten.

“Well, no. Uh. First of all I had to find his magic center, so I let my energy course his body and looked for where it pooled.” She explained as Magnus nodded, showing that he understood what she meant, it seemed to encourage her and she started explaining with energy about what she did.

“Once I found the center I let my magic pool there, slowly, but it never seemed to stay there for long, starting to move around and expire too much. That was the exhausting part - I had to give him a lot of my magic so his body would heal itself and start to keep it. So after a while of me thinking that it wasn’t working I noticed the small changes, how his body seemed to accept my magic faster and that it started staying in the magic centre.  It was a slow process and it took a long time before the magic stored in his body would stay there for longer than a day, but it happened. And before we realized, his skin seemed to get a similar shimmer that mine has and he stopped aging.” She blinked as Magnus listened intently.

“Dear, you did something never has ever managed to do - given a mundane immortality. You compromised both yours and his lives for that, but you managed to do it.” She smiled at that, it did sound like Magnus was praising her before he continued. “Never tell anyone about this. Write it down if you must, or I will, but be careful to who you tell this about. It is a very dangerous thing and must be kept a secret.” As he said that Magnus looked older than his physical nineteen-twenty years. All of his years and experience seemed to catch up with him in that moment and everyone knew that he wasn’t joking. Then he smiled one of his usual bright smiles and laughed. “I can’t believe you already figured out something like this! I’ll be expecting more from you in your long life.” It seemed to leave the pair stunned as Alec smiled at his boyfriend.

The pair stayed for a while longer, Anna and Magnus worked on writing the process down to be kept safe as Alec watched Darren play with Max. When they left and their son was in his bed, sleeping peacefully Alec let himself kiss Magnus how he wanted to and knew that what they learned today was a game-changer.

**Author's Note:**

> You can always find me on Tumblr as allofthefanfic :)


End file.
